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Thursday, April 20, 2017

White House may have violated its own ethics rules with Trump's executive-branch hires

Sonam ShethBusiness Insider
Originally published April 16, 2017

The Trump administration may be entangling itself in another ethical landmine.

In this case, the White House could have violated its own ethics rules with at least two hires, a New York Times and ProPublica investigation found.

One potential conflict involves Michael Catanzaro, who is the White House's top energy adviser. Until last year, The Times and ProPublica found, Catanzaro was working as a lobbyist for the fossil-fuel industry and had clients like Devon Energy of Oklahoma and Talen Energy of Pennsylvania.

Those two companies were stalwart opponents of President Barack Obama's environmental regulations, like the Clean Power Plan, which sought to promote the use of alternative energy sources. Trump signed an executive order undoing the plan in March. As the White House's top energy adviser, Catanzaro will handle many of those same issues.